Life on the street is hard everywhere on the world. You risk of health and in some cases even life. 3 out of 4 people think that if a homeless person can’t get off the street, it’s his fault. Probably because they’ve never experienced the street themselves.
It's really hard. I I tried it on the website Being homeless. You can be homeless for a one day. The film was shot by homeless themselves by camera glasses. Struggling to get food, to keep clean, to sleep, to survive.
This online campaign is from french agency SAMU SOCIAL, which is the organization for helping the homeless.
Here is demo of the site:
Source: Samu Social International
As they say, before you judge a man walk a mile in his shoes. It’s often very difficult to grasp the complexities of something if you’ve never experienced it yourself.
Living on the streets must be tough. Although this in itself is hardly the real problem. The real problems already start with drug-abuse, financial debts or alcoholism. From there to the street is just a small step.
By the way I find the site from SamuSocial highly irritating. The fact that you can’t leave the site by clicking on the obvious button takes my focus away from the message and adds nothing for the homeless.(But I know that is not your fault Jan!)
The difficulties go beyond the physical level—no bed, no bathroom, etc., no table—- the pain, I can only imagine, is really about one’s very own inner self…knowing that you do not have a shelter above your head—no place to go home, too.
The video we can see was shot near by the place where I live in Paris. There, I see very often poor people but also people from the Samu or other organizations trying to help them but life seems so hard for them. People are afraid by them. And those homeless people try to forget their condition by drinking a lot, unfortunelately, but some of them are trying to escape that, even if it seems hard
Living on the streets is tough unless you choose it as your life style and enjoy it. I always think of homeless in winter, especially on freezing days…. It is good many municipalities establish asylum houses where they can take shower, wash their clothes or get new ones (provided by charities) and get/cook their food.